The present invention relates to an air conditioner utilizing the Peltier effect.
Heat exchange in an air conditioning equipment has been tried in various ways, and particularly, heat exchange using the Peltier effect is nearing practical success.
A conventional example of the air conditioning equipment of the aforementioned type will be depicted hereinbelow with reference to FIGS. 5 and 6.
In FIG. 5, a thermoelectric device 1 which converts heat to electricity or vice versa is provided with fins at either side of a thermoelectric element. The temperature difference between the fins at either side of the element causes the generation of electrical energy and cooling is performed by causing a current to flow in the element. More specifically, as indicated in FIG. 5, there are formed alternately N-type semiconductors 3 and P-type semiconductors 5 on one surface of an insulative film substrate 2 of the device 1 in a longitudinal direction, with a conductors 4 held therebetween. A corrugated fin 6 is placed at each side of the film substrate 2 so as to contact every other conductor 4. Moreover, the corrugated fin 6 on one side of the substrate is in contact with the conductors 4 other than those with which the corrugated fin 6 on the other side of the substrate is in contact. The N-type semiconductors 3 and conductor 4 and, the P-type semiconductors 5 and conductors 4 are overlapped with each other at respective end parts thereof, so that a current entering the thermoelectric device 1 generates or absorbs heat at the interface between each of the semiconductors 3 and 5 and the conductor 4 due to the Peltier effect. At this time, since the N-type and P-type semiconductors 3 and 5 are arranged alternately, the conductors 4 are caused to be heat generating parts and a heat absorbing part alternately. Therefore, the one corrugated fin 6 becomes a heat generating fin and the other corrugated fin 6 becomes a heat absorbing fin. Heat is accordingly absorbed from the air above the film substrate 2, while being dispersed to the air below the film substrate 2, or vice versa.
FIG. 6 illustrates the conventional thermoelectric device 1 when used for air-conditioning. Such air-conditioning equipment requires a vast amount of air and, therefore, many thermoelectric devices 1 as in FIG. 5 are installed in such equipment to guide and exchange the air inside and outside a room. In the equipment, the flow direction of the air for each device 1 is the same. Two streams of air should be introduced separately to the different fins 6 at opposing sides of each device 1, as shown by the arrows 7 and 8. Moreover, it is necessary that the outside air taken from outside the room is discharged outdoors, while the inside air guided from inside the room is discharged indoors. Therefore, according to the conventional thermoelectric device, the flow system for the air is disadvantageously complicated, thereby not only raising the manufacturing cost, but increasing the pressure drop within the flow passage, to result in high power consumption and noise. Even worse, is that during heating with the conventional thermoelectric device, the temperature of the room is raised by emitting heat to the air inside the room, without changing the amount of water vapor included in the air. The relative humidity is lowered as the temperature increases, such that people feel uncomfortably dry.